It’s been a long time since I posted anything. No, nothing bad has happened to me and I haven’t stopped writing. Since I moved into The Fairfax, a military retirement community, I have been writing for their monthly paper, the Flambeau. When the Flambeau is published, each resident gets a copy in their mail box. Then I go around and brow beat them until they read my article.
I’m using the by-line of Jack Rice because no one would know who PJ was. PJ was sort of a high school/college thing.
Anyway, some of the stuff I’ve written is worth passing along. Back in March, I wrote about a scam call I received. I entitled it
The Pearl-Colored Mercedes
Isn’t it great that we can pick up prescription refills at the Clinic? That’s where I had been. Having picked up the refills, I was heading back to my apartment when my cell phone rang. I looked at it and it said the call was from Kingston, Jamaica. Well, many of us have an international background, so you might be surprised that I don’t know a soul in Jamaica.
The fellow told me he was calling from New York and that I had been selected as the winner of 2.8 million dollars and a pearl-colored Mercedes (I thought the pearl-colored Mercedes was a nice touch). I know, I know, you are supposed to hang up on these guys, but I was curious as to how the scam worked.
He wanted to know if I was excited. I told him I was, but it seemed too good to be true. He told me that he was speaking the “honest to goodness truth,” and “this was no baloneys.” (I have to confess, I don’t know how to spell baloneys). He told me that we needed to trust each other and that he was going to give me a lot of information about himself so I could trust him.
We then spent the next ten minutes with me taking down information ) I was back in my apartment). He gave me his name and badge number (BF 200 664). How much more official can you get? Then he gave me the package code number, the pearl-colored Mercedes code number and the $2.8 million code number. He told me not to share those numbers with anyone or they might steal my prizes (Heaven forbid)!
He asked me if I was familiar with Global Delivery Services. I told him I wasn’t, but was it something like UPS or FedEx? He said it was and they would be delivering my prizes today. He said that I should dress up nice because they would take some photos.
I had been talking to this jerk for about 20 minutes and he finally start to get around to the scam. He said that his company is affiliated with a number of banks and he read me off a long list of banks and asked if my bank was among them. I told him we were with Bank of America. He then asked me if my credit card was with them. I told him no, which was true.
I sensed we were getting to the critical moment and I was trying to be cautious. So I asked him if he knew where I lived. After all, they were going to deliver my prizes today. He said, “North Carolina.” (I live in Virginia). I asked him if he had an address and the phone went dead.
Oh well, it’s probably for the best. After all, I probably couldn’t get an assigned parking space here at The Fairfax for me pearl-colored Mercedes.
By PJ Rice
Copyright 2016